


we'll play hide and seek (to turn this around)

by hyperspecificplaylists



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25887565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperspecificplaylists/pseuds/hyperspecificplaylists
Summary: In which the gang is really, really tired of Sergio hopelessly pining over Raquel one year after the heist, and so they conspire to pull off what might be their most difficult scheme yet: buying Sergio two weeks to make Raquel fall in love (again) at a secluded Italian monastery.Alternatively: yet another AU wherein Sergio and co. escaped, but Raquel didn't meet him in Palawan.“Raquel?”No, no, no, no. It can't be.And yet, when Raquel turns around, nerves shot and mind churning through a million theories a minute, she finds herself staring at her very own impossible wish.“What are you doing here?”
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Palermo | Martín Berrote, Bogotá/Nairobi | Ágata Jiménez, Denver | Daniel Ramos/Mónica Gaztambide, Raquel Murillo/Professor | Sergio Marquina
Comments: 57
Kudos: 103





	1. it's been a while, but i still feel the same

_**give me love, like her  
** _ _**cause lately i’ve been waking up alone  
paint splattered teardrops on my shirt  
maybe i should let you go** _ ****

It is precisely 5:30 in Palawan, Philippines, when Sergio Marquina gets a call from his older brother ordering him to quote, _stop being a miserable asshole and get on the next plane to Italy,_ unquote.

Sergio rubs his eyes, still blurry and adjusting to the relative light seeping into his room through the curtains. He thinks about how he probably shouldn't have told Andrés to call him _anytime!_ and attempts to calculate an appropriate response to what is objectively an incredibly inappropriate demand.

Luckily, he's had practice over the years. His brother is, after all, nothing if not both inappropriate _and_ demanding. 

“Andrés,” Sergio says, voice faintly muffled from sleep, “do you know what time it is?”

“Of course, I do, hermanito,” Andrés says, with an abominable amount of cheer that indicates precisely what he and Martín were doing last night.

Before the heist was over, Sergio had quietly come up with several theories as to where his brother would run off to after their work was complete. Paris was a front-runner, its exquisite, occasionally snobby café's and limber archways well-suited for a man as obsessed with elegance as his brother. Switzerland had crisp alps, universal healthcare and excellent watches. Germany was, well, _Germany._ He had picked Berlin for a reason. 

But when they stood together on top of the boat once the others had gone to sleep, as they often had at the house, Andrés had surprised both of them by saying Florence. And not just saying it, but saying it _quietly._ With reverence. Without a hint of arrogance or dramatics or expectation.

Andrés had looked away from him, that moment, tilted his head up as though he was begging, and whispered it like a prayer to the stars. 

Sergio didn't need to ask what was in Florence that could possibly be worth more than fancy clockwork or macaroons or a namesake. 

"That is, of course, if it'll have me," Andrés had added, shrugging. 

Sergio clasped his shoulder. It was unusual for him to initiate physical contact; almost as unusual as his brother displaying any signs of regret or anything less than absolute confidence in himself. Yet here they were. Changed. 

"Of course he will," Sergio said, swallowing the lump that had risen in his throat without permission. "Of course he will." 

A few weeks later, Sergio had received a postcard signed jointly by Andrés and Martin, who apparently had reconnected immediately in more ways than one. 

Not that he wants to think about his brother and his friend doing that—ugh. Sergio scrunches up his face into one of disgust, even if there’s no one to witness it besides the walls of his room.

“It’s time…for you to book a flight to Florence!”

Sergio groans. 

“What are you going on about with Italy? What, are you and Martin planning another heist?" 

Andrés lets out a roguish chuckle, and Sergio can picture him in his mind as easily as the walls of the hospital where he spent most of his earlier years. You never forget your childhood home, no matter how far it becomes when you leave it.

Sergio sits up and sighs, ears pricking at the sound of tricycles and roosters croaking through the air. Soon enough, there will be swathes of people, a mix of tourists and locals alike, flooding the beaches with colourful, patterned banigs and rainbow coloured beach balls.

Sergio will play chess with the elderly Lolos and Lolas that show up every morning like clockwork, walk aimlessly around sandcastles and find his spot at the bar where he has been waiting every day for months without fail, for one woman. The only woman who could provoke an otherwise intelligent man to commit himself to a year of foolishness.

An apt line from an American detective novel he had read during his tenure at the hospital comes to mind; _the woman who eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex._

He grips the phone more tightly than necessary as a familiar yearning winds itself in his chest. Loneliness and desire intertwined. The feeling always worsens when he thinks of Raquel. Which, inconveniently, is almost always.

Tonelessly, he asks: “What is the point, then?”

There is a pause for a moment, nothing but the sound of something crackling on a pan on his brother’s end—Martìn making breakfast, perhaps—and the usual silence of Sergio’s room, seen by no one besides his current summer housekeeper, Angelo, a sarcastic, sharp-tongued Filipino college boy who spouts pop culture references that make Sergio’s head spin.

Finally, Andrés says, a fraction more gently than his usual tone, “your happiness.”

“I’m happy,” Sergio says, far too quickly to be convincing.

“Sergio,” Andrés says, switching into his deeper, _I’m your older brother, don’t even try me_ voice. He had employed it often during their childhood, when Sergio couldn’t understand _why_ he couldn’t just go out and play with the other kids, or why they didn’t have a mother like the other kids or why their father was even _bothering_ with all the treatments when it was clearly killing all of them.

20 something years later, it’s still as well-meaning and irritating as ever.

“ _What,_ ” Sergio snaps, harsh without meaning to be. “What do you want from me, Andrés?”

Unperturbed, Andrés repeats himself like a broken record: “I want you to come to Florence. Come to Florence, come to Florence, come to—”

“Alright! Alright. If you will get you to shut _up_ \---” Sergio says, exasperation propelling him to grab his glasses from his night stand and pad toward his laptop.

It’s a clunky, ugly looking thing, a Frankenstein creature built out of various untraceable parts that were stolen from other computers. His one and only Black Market purchase. Call him paranoid, but the last thing he needs is the government tracking his Google searches, which range from embarrassing (How to Get Over Someone, Wikihow) to downright pathetic (The Former Inspectora and the Professor: A Modern Day Love Story, People! Spain) 

Plus, it has the best ad-blocker he’s ever seen.

Rio would have loved it, Sergio thinks, a little wistful. He imagines the younger man happily sipping juice out of coconuts with Tokyo and feels a pang of nostalgia—the wretched thing—and simultaneous relief hammer in his chest.

At least some people have found peace. Knowing that the others, not least of all his brother, are leading joyful, full lives, makes everything they’ve endured worth it. 

_“_ Are you booking your ticket yet?”

Sergio emits a disgruntled noise. It really is too early for this. “I _just_ opened it--”

“Alright, alright,” Andrés says, clearly enjoying himself. “No need to get snippy, Sergio.”

Eventually, the page loads and Sergio manages to pull up the page listing all of the outgoing flights to Europe without throwing his phone out the window.

“When should I book?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Andrés!”

Andrés unfurls a dramatic sigh, as though he’s the one being unreasonable. Typical.

“I’m sorry,” Andrés says, not sounding particularly sorry, “am I interrupting your plans of pining after a woman who’s currently in Europe? Sergio, hermanito, you can’t just sit there and spend the rest of your life waiting for someone who isn’t coming.”

Ouch.

Sergio recoils into the back of his chair, the full-force of his brother’s words hitting him like a hard slap.

The thing is, he knows this already. Known it since the third month, really. But hearing it come from an objective observer makes his heart fall to the ground, where he imagines it getting dragged deep into the dirt and stomped on by a fleet of hurried sandals. 

“I know, it’s just—”

_It’s just that I’m in love with her and I don’t know how to stop._

The memories unspool in his mind on a never-ending loop: Raquel, grinning up at him the morning after the best night of his life. Raquel squeezing his hand in the diner. Raquel yelling at him, eyes blurred as she finally saw him for who he was: a liar and a thief. 

...Raquel kissing him in the hangar anyway, hard and frantic, as though she had known it would be the last time. 

“I know,” Andrés says, and Sergio can hear the effort he’s making to be soft, to be kind with him, despite the fact that they both know he’s being incredibly stupid, that he’s gone and done exactly what he warned them not to do.

_No personal relationships._

What a joke.

Sergio has to remind himself to take deep breaths as uncurls his fists against the cool desk.

“Okay,” he finds himself saying, barely recognizing the rugged voice that comes out. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Fantastic! This’ll be great, Sergio, you’ll see. You, me, Martìn and the others, drinking wine in Florence! It’ll be legendary, you’ll see.”

“Wait,” Sergio says, blinking rapidly. His pulse quickens, though whether it’s more from fear or excitement, he doesn’t know. Maybe the heat is finally getting to him.

“The others? What do you mean, the others?”

“What was that, Martìn? You think Sergio should take the stick out of his ass and start packing?” Andrés says in a way Sergio knows is complete and utter bullshit because if Martìn really wanted to scold him, he would do so himself. “Listen, hermanito, sorry to cut this short, but I have to go—”

“Andrés,” Sergio says, warningly, despite knowing that any attempts to get anything out of Andrés when he’s got his mind set, is a futile waste of both of their time. “Andrés, _what do you mean the others_?”

“Bags," Andrés says, ignoring him completely. "And stop scowling. I expect a happy, handsome face tomorrow. Ciao, bella." 

Damn.

Sergio pulls the phone from his ear and stares at it for a solid minute, as though _that’s_ going to do anything productive.

What just happened?

“This is a bad idea,” Sergio mutters, wondering what exactly he’s done to deserve the whorls of chaos he knows is coming.

Then he remembers that he led a team of ragtag robbers to steal a billion Euros (it was in the name of his dead father and government corruption, but still, everyone could agree it hadn’t gone without its hitches), baldly deceived the same woman he fell in love with before leaving her to deal with the aftermath of said heist and presumably vanishing off the face of the earth.

It’s like that alternative American song that Tony was humming the other day, the suburban edgy, off-beat one that Sergio imagines drives parents wild as it blasts in the bedrooms of millions of angst-y teenagers in North America; _some call it fate, some call it karma._

This? 

This is definitely karma. 

* * *

7387 miles away, while waiting in line for the nice cashier at the supermarket ten minutes past midnight, Raquel has exactly one coherent thought: _I don’t deserve this shitty karma._

This, of course, being her face splattered on the front page of every magazine and newspaper lined up on the racks in Spain. Last week, it was _Stockholm Syndrome: the case of Mónica Gaztambide and Denver (the hot one),_ featuring a saucy interview with Arturo Roman insulting Denver’s intelligence and slut-shaming his ex-mistress. She'd barely finished reading the byline before curling her lip. 300 words later, she can confirm that the piece was as disgustingly exploitative as it sounds. 

“Serves her right,” a man had muttered on her train to work.

“Excuse me?”

“Gaztambide,” the man continued on obliviously, tone dripping with judgement. “It’s messed up, what that homewrecker did.”

Raquel’s blood pressure rose.

“What she did?" Raquel echoed, disbelief ringing out in the once quiet train. "You mean, enter a consensual relationship with a man who wasn’t married with three kids? You mean fall in love? That’s messed up?”

The man froze, almost comically, his newspaper fluttering to the floor as he squishes himself against the seat self-consciously. Evidently _being called out on casual misogyny_ had not been on his commute agenda for the day.

“Er—well, I didn’t think—”

“That’s right,” Raquel snapped, raising her voice even as people in the other rows began to mutter and peer at her with vested interest.

“You didn’t think. You judged her because it’s easier, and because she’s a woman, and it’s so _fucking_ hard to believe that a woman can make her own choices, isn’t it?”

“Hey,” someone called out from the back. A curious teenager, from the looks of it, who interrupts the confrontation and swivels their phone screen toward her.

With a trembling note of reverence, the girl asked, “aren’t you the Inspectora?”

And just like that, all of her anger died at an instant, like a flame licked by a wave.

Raquel sucked in a breath and met the girl's eyes, wishing that she could silently communicate that it wasn't the bullshit Hollywood fantasy that the media had fed the public. 

It had taken a toll on all of them, in its own ways. People who had been directly affected couldn't sleep properly for months, their minds like field mines easily triggered by anything so much as skirted the alarm. They all felt, in some ways, guilt and anger and betrayal---at the robbers who had brought chaos and exposed everything wrong with the way things were, at the police who hadn't served or protected anything but themselves, at the world for allowing this to happen. 

Only Raquel had the pleasure of falling in love with the man behind it. 

Of course, she didn't say any of this out loud. Instead she gazed at the girl, who was still looking at her like she was some sort of--hero--and sighed. She remembered what it was to be so young, to believe so fervently in the institution, to believe that the institution was good and right and just. 

Briskly, she said, “I don’t work with the police anymore," got up, and left the train two stops too early. 

Tonight, Raquel grips her shopping basket and sneaks glances at an airbrushed version of her face, which some graphic design major, who had probably spent thousands of dollars on a Bachelor’s degree only to be ordered by their boss to work on a cover for a storyline straight out of a teen soap, had kindly smushed beside Salva's---The Professor's---Sergio's. God. Whatever the hell he goes by these days. 

_The Former Inspectora and the Professor: A Modern Day Love Story_

Raquel’s fingers twitch toward her oranges. If only fruit throwing was still an acceptable practice.

The initial sheen of the heist may have worn off, but the world’s fascination with the robbers behind it shines as brightly as the sun on Spain. It blazes; it burns; it makes her want to slap on a large hat and die a little (a lot) inside.

“Over here,” the cashier says, beckoning her with a sharp jut of her chin.

Raquel blinks, jolted back into the present by the young woman's cool tone. She looks down at her wrist watch; 12:15. 

Graveyard shifts are usually manned by Santiago, a cheery twenty-something fuelled by energy drinks and the quintessential customer service motto: service with a smile!

This one is an unimpressed seventeen year old with a trendy bob and a fairly mocking scowl that reminds her of another pretty young woman who had faced off with her, albeit under drastically different circumstances.

Silene/Tokyo had been so combative, brutal, even, with her words in that tent. But Raquel had also seen the terror in her eyes, the way she held her hands in her lap like a wounded animal. She was different from Raquel in so many ways, and yet there were enough traces of similarity in her fierceness, her independence, even her anger, that allowed Raquel to feel for her. 

Raquel wonders where she is now. Free in another city, maybe even happy. She wonders if she knows where The Professor---safer to call him that, she thinks---is hiding. 

Her stomach dips traitorously at the thought and she sighs, disappointed in herself for even going there. 

"Hey, Señora," says Not Santiago, drumming her fingers on the register. "You want to buy your stuff or not?" 

Raquel just barely manages to resist rolling her eyes and begins to place her items on the conveyor belt at random. 

Oranges, eggs, Milk, superhero themed yogurt. Paula's going through a phase, though she would be lying if she said the hipster granola stuff that they sprinkle on top isn't tasty. 

Midnight grocery shopping is a new routine of hers, borne out of necessity more than any natural desire to stroll around the frozen section past Paula's bedtime. 

It had started as a result of the constant Snapchatting (is that still a thing?) and gasping and _do you know where they are?_ (no), do you think they were right? (perhaps), _is El Professor as good in bed as he sounds?_ (regrettably, yes). But Raquel now finds that she enjoys stepping into the brisk night, seeing the neon lights strike out against the evening skies, walking aimlessly around the store when it's hushed and playing Selena Quintanilla's greatest hits over the tinny speakers. 

At any rate, it's better than tossing around in her bed or dreaming about things she doesn't want to think about when she's awake.

At least with this, she has a choice. 

"He's not that hot," Not Santiago says, when she catches Raquel's gaze lingering on the magazine. 

"What?" 

"The Professor," Not Santiago says, rolling her eyes as she scans the oranges without looking. Definitely a Tokyo, Raquel thinks. At least she's good at her job; Santiago and his chatter sometimes made a five item run feel more like twelve. 

"He's not that hot." 

Raquel bites her lip, gazing at his dark brown eyes, his stubble, his soft, moody hair that she had once had the pleasure of combing her hands through. 

"Really?"

"Well, okay, maybe he is pretty fucking hot," Not Santiago admits, drawing a laugh from the other woman. Then Not Santiago looks Raquel straight in the eye, piercing and knowing in a way that takes her by surprise. 

"But there are lots of other hot people in Spain, you know?" Not Santiago pauses for a moment, as though debating whether to push further. "You don't need him." 

Raquel swallows and says, "I know." 

Raquel doesn't need him any more than she needed Alberto to be a good husband instead of a violent piece of shit, or Àngel to be a good friend instead of a replacement husband. She doesn't need him any more than she needed Laura to support her as her sister above anything else. She doesn't need him any more than she needed Alicia, when they were young and stupid and hated each other so much that they loved each other. 

She doesn't need Sergio to be her bodyguard in glasses. 

The fact that she wants him anyway, after everything he's done...Well. Her mother always said she was a romantic. 

She has a feeling Not Santiago knows, though. That despite being a stranger, she sees her, just as she saw Silene in that godawful tent. 

As the girl finishes wrapping all of her groceries in a paper bag, Raquel mindlessly slides her card out of her wallet, making a move to hand it to her when the girl shakes her head. 

"Have a good night, Señora," she says. 

Raquel opens her mouth to protest, but catches the determined look in her eyes and stops. 

"Thank you," she says, feeling weirdly emotional about it. This is what happens, she supposes, when you try to do Adult Tasks in the middle of the night. "You too." 

When she gets home, Paula and Marìvi are both snoring up a symphony. She pads toward the kitchen, bathed in a rich, ocean blue, and tucks everything in its place before heading out to the balcony. 

It’s so unfair, Raquel thinks, as she gazes at the mural of The Professor’s stupid, handsome face splayed on the side of the building across from hers. The first time she had seen it, it made her cry. Countless art pieces, including bizarre interpretative dances, had popped up in the last few months. But none had managed to capture him like this one. It was the way they had drawn his eyes; hazel brown, with a surprising boldness that only appeared if you got close enough to look. She had, and now the past tense was killing her. 

He had escaped Spain, but it seems like no matter what she does, she can't escape him.

In 168 hours, Raquel is about to find out just who true this is.

* * *

Florence is as beautiful as his memory of it. 

Every alleyway and maroon cobblestone feels steeped in history, the morning air steaming with the scent of espresso and farmer's market flowers. It's familiar enough to put Sergio at ease, while holding enough secrets in its sunlit pockets to retain a sense of old fashioned mystery. 

The monastery in particular has always felt like a safe haven, sacred grounds away from the hustle and noise of honking cars and tourists. Again, despite Sergio's lack of religiosity, he still appreciates the art and the architecture of the place. He drags his feet admiring the solemn statues even as Andrés tries to hurry them along ("It's like you've never been here before.") and takes a moment to chart the entire landscape at the top of the hill as though he is a painter standing before his future masterpiece. 

When they finally reach the entrance, Sergio is greeted by five robbers, his brother's boyfriend, one former hostage and their child, one former hitman, one expert in metallurgy, and an elderly monk. 

"Professor!" 

Logically, he knows he should be furious.

This gathering quite literally goes against all of his carefully, painstakingly planned protocols, theoretically endangers everyone including the monks, and is a general recipe for chaos. 

And yet Sergio cannot deny the rush of pure joy that fills his whole body, his lungs, his heart, his _everything_ , when he sees Tokyo with her arms slung around Nairobi and Rio, when he hears Denver's unmistakeable laugh, when he sees Moscow and Martìn comparing notes on the latest car models. This is homecoming, he thinks. 

This is family. 

Emotion swells in the space where loneliness has caved inside his chest for the last few months. There is so much to talk about, so many questions to ask, and it seems that the sense of urgency is not his alone. Everyone is talking over each other, chatter striking through in every direction. 

"It's good to see you, Professor," Tokyo whispers earnestly, when she breaks through the crowd and pulls him in for a hug. 

"It's good to see you too, Tokyo," he says, blinking rapidly. "It's good to see all of you." 

Fortunately, the new additions, Marseilles, Bogotá, and Martìn fit well with the rest of them, like wolves bred from the same pack. 

Much like Sergio, Marseilles is a quiet observer, mostly helping Mónica prepare vegan meals and teaching her and Denver's son, Cinci, how to tame ferrets. Bogotá has taken to flirting with Nairobi with every breath he breathes, much to the annoyance of the latter and the amusement of everyone else. Martìn finishes Andrés' sentences, puts him to shame and draws raucous laughter doing both. 

Sergio still thinks of Raquel sometimes---he can't help his cerebral function---and he can't deny that the ache is still there, like a constant bruise that still tingles when his mind wanders off without permission. It's easier with the gang, though; the sting is less fresh, more manageable. All it takes to forget is Rio and Denver rolling around in the grass, Moscow teaching them line dancing, Andrés and Tokyo arguing over whether the latter was cheating at Monopoly before the board inevitably gets flipped over. 

On the fifth day, Sergio almost tricks himself into acceptance; that this is the most happiness he will ever achieve without being a part of Raquel's family, and that he's okay with that. 

Then, one warm night over bread and pesto and wine, they're recounting everything that went wrong during the heist, when Martìn clears his throat and says, innocently, "wait, then how the hell did you fools get out in time?"

Suddenly Sergio wishes he ate slower, as his stomach churns with the knowledge of what's going to come up. He normally does take his time chewing, but the pesto had been so delicious. Curse Monk Adrian's culinary gifts. 

"What do you mean? We just told you," Nairobi says, chomping on a breadstick with one hand and waving her wine glass around in the air with the other. "Or were you too busy mooning over your boy to listen." 

Martìn laughs and pretends to throw his napkin at her. His eyes have always been a startling, icy blue, but Sergio's never seen them warmer than the moment Nairobi says _your boy._

"I didn't mean the mechanics, darling. I meant the timing of it all. Seemed a little...tight, no?" 

Yes. He definitely should have chewed the pasta more. 

Sergio clears his throat, sending Martìn silent signals with his eyes. There's no way that Andrés hadn't briefed him on the whole situation, which of course included the fact that Raquel had stalled just enough to seal their escape before her colleagues could barge into the hangar. _Stop it,_ he thinks, a little desperate. 

Martìn wiggles his eyebrows. _Te amo,_ he mouths. Bastard. 

"Now that you mention it," Moscow muses aloud, bouncing a gurgling Cinci on his lap, "it is curious that they arrived just as we left. Honestly, I thought we were screwed." 

"Papa," Denver says, scandalized. Or as scandalized as one can be with a mouthful of pasta. "Really?" 

"I'm just saying it was very convenient! One minute earlier and we'd be in prison for life. Or worse." 

Rio cackles, making a noise that sounds effectively like _dun, dun, dun,_ until Tokyo slaps him lightly on the side of his head. 

"It wasn't luck," she corrects, meeting Sergio's eyes. There is pride in her voice when she declares, with no amount of irony, "It was the Professor." 

"Well, I suppose you could say that," Andrés murmurs, raising an eyebrow when Sergio glares at him. 

Nairobi leans in, taking the proverbial bait. "What's that supposed to mean, oh wise one?" 

Damn---er, shit. Shoot. 

Yeah, he's definitely going to hell. 

"It means that we had a little help from the inside, didn't we, Professor?"

"Yes. We were very fortunate...that Raquel bought us just enough time to get the money and get out before her ex-colleagues could raid the hangar." 

For one brief moment in time, a silence falls over the table, as though everyone besides Sergio, Martìn and Andrés, have forgotten that breathing is an essential function of life. There might be literal crickets squeaking in the background, though his mind is spinning too much to concentrate on anything other than the gobsmacked crowd in front of him. It would be comical, Sergio thinks, if the stakes weren't so personal. 

Then the silence is effectively punctured by a flurry of voices struggling to speak over each other: 

" _Raquel_?" 

"Wait, what the fuck?"

"Why did she help us?" 

"What do you mean, _Raquel_?"

Sergio is about to literally duck under the pressure (the cold, hard floor is looking particularly appealing in the face of this crowd) when the sound of a fork clinking sharply against glass pierces through the frantic chatter. Monk Adrian, who, up until this point, had been observing them silently devour his pasta, commenting on absolutely nothing, including Denver's questionable recitation of the Lord's prayer, clears his gravelly throat and says: "Settle down." 

Whether it's out of some respect for the holy man or the fact that his voice sounds exactly what Sergio presumes a disappointed grandfather would sound like, they do, in fact, settle down. Perhaps he should have planned the first heist in the monastery as well. No doubt they would have skated through lessons much faster with a force like Monk Adrian. 

"Now, children---"

"Who is he calling children?" 

Monk Adrian sniffs, and says, cool, "we are all children of God, are we not?"   
  
Nairobi juts her chin toward Andrés, who winks at her.

"That's _extremely_ debatable." 

Monk Adrian ignores this. 

"As I was _saying_ , if you want to hear about this man and the woman that he's so clearly in love with, I suggest, in the Lord's name, that you all shut up and let him speak." 

"Amen," Martìn says cheerily. 

Sergio chokes on his wine. 

"Love? I never said---"

Monk Adrian shoots him a withering look as he takes a delicate sip of water. "Please, Sergio, do you think I was born in these robes? I know a man in love when I see it." 

Because they are clearly no better than yard of children at recess, this statement results in a chorus of _oohs_ , and knee slaps, any traces of seriousness evaporating into the country air. 

"Not to be a killjoy," Bogotá interupts, raising his hand like a school boy as Nairobi sniggers beside him and smacks his hand in the air. He pauses to glower at her, leaning down with a faux-menacing glare as though any bone in his body could possibly be mad at her, and not mad about her. 

"But who the fuck is Raquel?" 

Rio produces a magazine from the pile of newspapers and other sources from the outside world, which, up until this point, had been collecting dust on the shelf, and tosses it toward the burlier man. 

_The Former Inspectora and the Professor: A Modern Day Love Story_

Sergio's cheeks flush so hard it feels like his entire body is burning. This stupid story is haunting him. 

The rest of them crowd over the magazine behind Bogotá, who whistles lowly as he inspects the superimposed shot. Not even an undeniably mediocre Photoshop job (Sergio half-wonders how much the graphic design intern got paid for it then realizes that is hardly the point) can diminish Raquel's beauty.

" _Pig,"_ Nairobi declares, elbowing Bogotá sharply in his side until he yelps. 

"Hey, I'm just showing my appreciation for a beautiful woman," Bogotá argues, nodding toward Sergio. "I get it now. I would definitely fuck up my plan for her too." 

Out of the corner of his eye, Sergio catches Andrés massaging his temples as Martìn laughs and whispers things no one can catch into his ear. 

"That's not it," Sergio says, shaking his head and casting a look at the field outside, where golden hour pours itself liquid on the grass and makes everything look a little magical. He can't help but think she would have loved it here; the open air, the space for Paula to run around and chase butterflies, the safety for Marivì to roam without getting hurt. 

"I mean--yes, of course, she's beautiful," Sergio says, ignoring Bogotá's enthusiastic thumbs up as he attempts to gather his thoughts. "But that's not why I...that not why I fell in love with her." 

Tokyo looks up at him, curiosity writ plainly in the wrinkle of her forehead as she leans forward on her elbows.

"Then why?" Her voice is uncharacteristically soft, as though she's asking to understand and not to shove it back in his face. 

Sergio sighs. 

How can he explain what he can barely explain to himself? What even he is afraid to understand, to pick apart for fear of coming to the conclusion that he already knows subconsciously to be true? 

"Well, first of all, Raquel is...brilliant. I mean, she's incredibly sharp. Many times she would have probably solved the whole case if not for me."

"I can personally vouch for that," Andrés interjects dryly, no doubt remembering that fateful night wherein almost everything went wrong because Sergio had been otherwise...occupied. 

"Okay, so she's smart as hell," Nairobi says, cocking her head to the side. "And hot, obviously. But we knew that. There has to be more to it." 

From his position at the opposite end of the table, fingers laced into Martìn's, Andrés shoots Sergio an encouraging smile. Over the years, Sergio had heard his brother rattle on and on about the virtues of countless women and men; now was the time to return the favour. 

Sergio clears his throat, fiddling with his napkin before gazing back at a sea of earnest faces. No judgement, no anger, no disappointment. 

Then, like rain flooding a desert, everything spills out all at once. 

"She's strong, but not cold. Actually, she's one of the warmest people I've ever met, even despite everything that life has thrown at her. She's kind, yet she's not afraid to fight for what she believes in. And Raquel, she really cares about people---no one is insignificant. Every life is worth saving, worth knowing. Even a guy like me, who's never had a relationship last longer than a few months...And I know it is cliché and it goes against pretty much everything I taught you, but I don't regret what happened between us. Even if it ended terribly, even if I'll spend the rest of my life miserable, measuring everyone else against her. To be loved by Raquel was---"

Sergio breaks off, remembers the pulsing outrage she'd expressed when she thought Alberto had beaten him up, remembers the way she looked at her daughter, remembers the scent of her perfume when she hugged him for doing something so simple as giving her flowers. 

"Was?" 

Sergio snaps back to reality and almost chuckles at his captive audience. They had never been so interested in class, even when he was talking about the money. 

"To put it simply? It was worth more to me than anything else." 

For a second, it seems no one knows what to say, the words washing over them as they sit together, half-drunk and buoyed by each other's presence. 

Then Nairobi and Rio say, in perfect unison: "That's love, bitch," and levity is restored. 

Tokyo snorts, casting Sergio an apologetic look. Leaning in conspiratorially, she says, "they've been like this ever since we landed; I've created a monster." 

Sergio really does laugh then, feeling as though the anchor of guilt that has been nestled deep inside of him has finally been yanked free. No more secrets. It's a vow he swears to live by for the rest of his life. When it comes to personal matters, at least. 

Then a quiet voice rumbles, "so how'd it end?" 

There's an awkward minute as everyone scrambles to figure out who the source is before they realize it's Marseilles. 

"What," he says, slow and deliberate, "I'm not allowed to be curious?" 

"So that's what his voice sounds like," Denver whispers, before Mónica shushes him. 

Sergio touches the side of his glasses and starts, "Well, ah, I don't know what she's doing---"

"Your Google Searches would beg to differ," Andrés says, the devil. 

"---Personally, I mean. Anyway, she's probably found someone by now," Sergio says, attempting to shrug as though the mere concept doesn't make his insides freeze colder than the tundra. It isn't hard to picture her with someone handsomer, someone easier, someone far better than a man like himself, who struggles to string out the words before it's too late. 

"Even if she hasn't, she probably hates me," Sergio mutters, staring at the red liquid, now grossly warm and lying at the bottom of his glass. "As she should." 

"You know, Professor," Mónica pipes up, tucking a curl behind the back of her ear shyly as Denver squeezes her hand. "There's a quote from an American film that may apply to your current situation." 

Sergio slides his gaze toward her, interest piqued. He hasn't spent as much time with her as the others, for obvious reasons, so the fact that she's addressing him directly makes him stand up a little straighter. He tries to school his expression into one of encouragement. 

"Oh?" 

"Mm. It's, _it doesn’t matter if the guy is perfect or the girl is perfect, as long as they are perfect for each other,"_ Mónica recites flawlessly. Her bright eyes are tender and so full of understanding that Sergio understands immediately how she and Denver fell in love during a literal crime. "We've all made mistakes. Do you think I thought I would fall in love with the man that shot me in the leg---"

"To protect you!"

"---and came into my workplace to steal a billion euros? No. We cannot choose who we fall in love with," Mónica pauses meaningfully, dainty fingers slipping into Denver's calloused ones. "But we can choose how we love them." 

"Aww," Rio and Bogotá coo on cue, as Denver swoops in for a chaste kiss. 

"Gross," Tokyo scoffs, though the grain that reaches both of her cheeks betrays her. 

Denver kisses the top of Mónica's soft curls and says, with a note of accusation, "oh, please, as if we didn't spend six months trying to avoid you and Rio making out freaking everywhere." 

Everyone including the couple in question can't help but laugh at that, leading them down a rabbit hole of funny stories about awkward interruptions until Monk Adrian announces his leave (conspicuously before clean up) and they slowly begin to gather up the plates and leftovers. 

_We can choose how we love them._

The words echo in Sergio's mind as he makes the slow journey to his room. He's always enjoyed the perks of not having to share with the others, but after all that talk of love and intimacy, the extra space, devoid of another person's things and scent and presence, feels more pronounced than ever. 

That night, Sergio has his most beautiful and painful dream yet: that Raquel is flying, and that she and her family are on her way to him. 

* * *

After being left to handle the hellish aftermath of the heist, two weeks in Italy sounds like nothing less than a dream, especially for Raquel who has racked up enough vacation days to take a year if she really wanted to. 

Not that that matters much now, considering that Raquel effectively slammed and triple locked the door on any business with the force a when her report, _The Flaws and Failings of an Un-just Justice System_ , was released just this Spring. 

Public reaction had been decisive and fierce, a fact illustrated plainly through the polls. Even for non-statisticians, two squiggly lines was not difficult to read: Raquel was up, the police not so much. 

And though she isn't the type to preen over her own handiwork, Raquel can admit to feeling a physical swell of relief when she first watched the comments flood through various online channels. 

thelastrobber: I FUCKING KNEW IT #ResignPrieto #MurilloforPresident

XimenaEstrada: Brilliant commentary on a legacy of unjustified force and a culture built on sexism and exclusion

j0nasgarcia: Raquel Murillo is a queen and that's a fact. 

RicardoRosales: Excellent look at corruption in our institutions. Makes you think about what changes need to be made to better serve the people. 

The report had been her baby, after all, and knowing that thousands of people, regular people with lives and hopes and dreams just like her, whose voices mattered even when society told them they didn't, had taken invaluable time out of their days to read and support it, still makes her smile when she thinks about it. 

And it hadn't been a walk in the park, either.

Raquel had spent several sleepless nights documenting everything that her department had done wrong in 12 pt. Times New Roman.

She drank bottomless cups of coffee, lost several pencils in her hair, and risked getting an earful at her next optometrist appointment, just so that she could lay it all out for anyone who read it: the pervasive culture of sexism, the deep seated government corruption, the fact that they had seriously, and without a hint of remorse, ordered her to save Alison Parker over nine other hostages simply because they were afraid that the British would take over and make everyone drink tea.

And Raquel hadn’t just written about her case—that would have been too easy. Too kind, she felt, for the bastards in institutions that used their positions to cause harm instead of minimizing it.

Instead, she did her research, scouring through old reports of egregious power trips and misconduct and complaints against high-ranking men like Prieto, most of which had either gotten dismissed or gotten shoved in dusty desk drawers. 

And so when Marivì had first suggested a two week trip to Italy to celebrate her newfound freedom, Raquel did not think about expenses or bookings or itineraries. She did not think about why her mother was bringing this up, why Italy, why now.

She simply said yes.

“I could use some Italian coffee,” Raquel mused, having become somewhat of a connoisseur over the last few months. It wasn’t exactly the cheapest or healthiest habit, but it _was_ preferable to lung cancer.

“And handsome strangers,” Marivì quipped, chuckling when Raquel’s serene expression twisted into one of disgust.

“Mama,” she whined, lips pursed into a stern expression. “Not this again. Remember what happened the last time I met a handsome stranger?”

“Yes,” Marivì said solemnly. “You got laid, didn’t you?”

Raquel chucked her napkin at the trash and watched it soar for a second, only to miss two inches shy of its destination. Story of her life.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.”

When Marivì subsequently suggested staying at a monastery of all places, however, Raquel was less enthused and more bemused.

“You want to stay at a…monastery? Like, a holy one? With monks and Jesus?”

Raquel had been raised Catholic, like the majority of everyone else she knew growing up. She strongly recounted her school girl days of Bible study and Church choir; the faded, yellowing pages crackling with time, the assembly of voices practicing scales on Sunday morning.

But Marivì had always been more moderate than devout. Plus, she had always been against some of the older passages; Raquel still remembers their priest’s expression of abject horror when Marivì had interrupted him during Mass to argue with him about the whole ‘silent wives’ piece.

“Do you know any other types of monasteries?” Marivì said, raising a delicate eyebrow as though _she_ was the one acting strange.

Mothers.

Raquel wondered if this was what Paula felt when she was frustrated.

“Okay,” Raquel said, careful as so not to agitate the older woman. “But why?”

“Consider it a dying woman’s last wish,” Marivì said, squeezing her hand across the table.

Raquel would have been more concerned if she hadn’t witnessed the ever familiar glint of mischief lurking in the twitching corners of her mouth.

“I thought your last wish was for me to find love again,” Raquel challenged, narrowing her eyes. A Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, years of training and honed instincts did not disappear with one’s badge.

Something was off here, clearly, but Raquel simply couldn’t fathom what her ailing mother could be up to. Was this the meds? A near-death return to religion? A sign that Raquel should consider saving herself the trouble and devote the rest of her life to being a nun?

“Oh, yes, that too,” Marivì said lightly. “Cariña, just do it for me, okay? Besides, at least it will be cheaper!”

Far from it was Raquel to argue with economics.

Hence: the monastery.

They take a cab straight from the airport, driven by a handsome and chatty man who went by the curious nickname of Palermo.

“I love the city,” Palermo had confirmed, speaking with a nonchalant shrug and an easy smile.

This, Raquel would reflect later, should have been her first clue.

It is a winding drive, but doesn't feel like a long one thanks to Palermo’s seemingly endless mouth of stories. They pass several sepia alleyways, stone fountains and, at one point, a flurry of emerald coloured trees, until finally they reach the holy site.

“Wow,” Raquel murmurs, as she and Palermo carry their bags into the entrance.

“It looks so cool!” Paula squeals, running onto the grass with her arms spread out like an eagle. “Alessandra’s going to be _so_ jealous; this is way better than her uncle’s mansion. ”

The buildings are erected with art, sprawled over endless fields of freshly cut grass and watched over by parades of solemn statues. As if on instinct, she thinks: _he would have loved this._

“You see?” Marivì said, watching her daughter take in the scenery with a beam that could have powered the city. “So much better than that Trivago nonsense. Aren’t you glad we came here instead?”

Raquel turned to her mother, a tell-tale burning in her throat. No, no, no. She is not about to cry. She isn't.

“Oh, God,” Palermo says, a teasing smile playing on his pink lips. He bumped her shoulder gently. “My driving wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Raquel lets out a choked laugh and blinked away any stray tears that dared to make a run for it.

“No, no,” she says, waving away his attempts to carry her bag in addition to Marivì’s and Paula’s. “I’m sorry, it’s just been a rough couple of months and this is my first vacation in years and I’m just so…tired.”

Palermo made a sympathetic noise as Paula eagerly bounded through the ancient halls without any reservations, Marivì holding her hand and whispering stories about the paintings; _“See, Paulita, that one looks like your abuelo, Marco, who never ever cut his moustache.”_

_“Never?”_

_“Not even when he died.”_

“That sounds like quite a story,” Palermo offers, licking his lips as though to keep himself from asking what he really wants to ask. 

“Oh, you have no idea,” Raquel mutters, trying to avoid thinking of Salva—The Professor—Sergio—ah, fuck it. 

_Don’t you just want to get away?_

Ha.

One of them had certainly gotten away. No doubt he was on some tropical paradise right now, with a book and a cocktail. Perhaps a pretty woman who wouldn’t question his endless amount of wealth. Whatever.

He is a free man; free to do whatever or whomever he liked. Just as she was.

Telling herself this doesn't ease the knot that springs in Raquel’s stomach at the thought of him holding someone as he did her—fully, but not possessively. After Alberto, she wasn’t sure if she would ever feel the difference again, and now that she had, it was difficult to settle for anything else. 

“I know that look,” Palermo says, a sly expression creeping up on his face. “You’re thinking about a handsome ex-lover, no?

A pink flush tinges her cheeks and Raquel is suddenly grateful that Marivì is way ahead of them. Marivì had liked The Professor far too much to be dissuaded by a pesky little thing called illicit criminal activity.

Even if it had been in the name of his dead father and arguably ‘a subversive stand against government corruption’, as the Millennial listicles liked to put it. 

“Am I that obvious?” Raquel mutters dryly, avoiding the man’s brilliant blue eyes when he peered at her.

“Yes,” he said bluntly, causing her to chuckle. She finds his humour rather refreshing; his candor more so. Perhaps they would see each other once more during her two week trip. She hates to think that this one conversation is all she'll have with someone bold enough to tell the story of a disastrous first kiss to a relative stranger. 

“Also,” Palermo adds, almost shyly, “I’m rather experienced in the, ah, trials of love myself.”

“Oh?”

“Mm, yes. I was madly in love with this man for ten years; he was my best friend.”

“And then?”

Palermo pauses dramatically and leans in, as though he's about to deliver a state secret. “He got married. Again.”

Raquel whistles, sending him a sympathetic look. At times she really doesn't think it was possible for anyone to have it worse, but hearing Palermo’s story, she feels almost serendipitous in comparison.

“I’m sorry,” she says, pausing to look him in the eye as she did so. They are such simple words, she thinks. So often thrown around like plastic bandaids that mean nothing. With the right person at the right time, though, they can mean everything.

Palermo returns her smile with a soft look in his eyes and shakes his head, as though remembering something wonderful.

“Don’t be. Because five years later, he’s back in my life and let me tell you—it's so much better after a slow burn.”

Raquel barked out a laugh, covering her mouth with her hand as a pair of monks sweep past them with serious faces and muttering what sounded like actual Latin.

“Amazing,” she murmurs, unable to wipe the grin off her face.

She had forgotten how fun it was just to laugh, even with a total and complete stranger.

“See, Raquel, in the wise words of an American songstress,” Palermo says, clenching his jaw to maintain his composure. “If it’s meant to be, it’ll be, it’ll be. Baby, just let it be.”

That did it.

They both stop and drop the bags to lean against the wall, peeling with laughter. The sound echosd through the halls, intermingling with the chime of bells like the sweet sounds of heaven.

“And what about you and your mystery man?” Palermo inquires, raising a suggestive eyebrow after they finally pull themselves together. “Do you see a future with him?”

_Even if it all goes perfectly, I’ll still be screwed. Because I’ll never see you again._

Raquel sobered up almost immediately, her easy grin wavering.

She never could get those words out of her head.

Sometimes, when she lies awake in bed well into the night, and feels herself engulfed in a pit of loneliness, she clings to the words like a safety vest. Because she still remembers the way he had said it in that hangar, desperation and raw, unfiltered longing bleeding into his voice—his real voice. It had been proof that he had been telling the truth about one thing throughout: his feelings for her.

Feelings that were probably gone and faded by now, Raquel reasons, letting a quiet sigh escape her lips. It had been months. He had probably moved on.

But it had been nice to know she had truly held the affections of such a fascinating—and ultimately, she believed, _good_ —man, if only for a moment.

“No,” Raquel says, missing the flash of worry crossing Palermo’s face as she folded her arms and looked up at the high ceiling.

“I don’t know where he is,” Raquel admits, wondering, not for the first time, if she should have asked after they kissed.

There had been a brief period between the deliriousness of finishing her report and keeping Marivì stable and making sure Paula was safe when Raquel got it in her head that maybe he would contact her. Leave her a hidden clue, drop her a line. He was objectively one of the most brilliant people she had ever met; if he really wanted to, she believed he could have sent her some kind of sign.

When days turned into weeks and weeks into months, Raquel forced herself to accept it like a child who learning to swallow pills for the first time: forcefully, but with the hopes that one day it would hurt less.

“Even if I wanted to,” Raquel continues, tongue loosening the longer she spent in Palermo’s presence, "I really don’t think I’ll ever see him again.”

“But if you do—”

“I won’t,” Raquel says flatly, reaching for her bag just to give her hands something else to do besides clench into tight fists.

“But if you do,” Palermo presses, with an urgency that strikes Raquel as odd even if she can't quite place why.

She holds his gaze for a moment, trying to gage the shifty look in his eyes.

Was he being suspicious or was she being paranoid?

Maybe he's just easily invested in other people’s affairs, like those strangers online who gushed about her and the Professor’s relationship as though it were something out of a tragically romantic movie instead of her unromantically tragic life.

“See him again, that is,” Palermo clarifies, at Raquel’s questioning look.

Then he takes a breath and asked the very question she didn’t want to answer, mostly because she already knows what her answer was: “Do you think you’d give him another chance?”

Because of him, she's no longer a cop who believed wholeheartedly in the current system. Because of him, she sees why this was ultimately a good thing. Because of him, she skips the classical station on the radio and passes by Café Hanoi without ordering a single thing. Because of him she had felt more loved than she had during the last three years of her marriage.

Would she give him another chance?  
  
The answer slips out before she could keep her heart from speaking for her brain:

“Yes.”

Suddenly, Palermo looks like she had handed him a billion Euros.

“Glad to hear it,” Palermo says brightly, patting her shoulder. Okay, then. 

Raquel quirks an eyebrow. He really is a strange man, she thought.

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“Turn around,” Palermo says, a fraction more gently, as though preparing her to dive into the ocean. 

Her heart thrums erratically.

There's no way, she thinks, barely even letting herself finish the thought before it starts.

Hope, she's learned, is useless for impossible wishes. And this is nothing if not that.

Then a voice darts into the air, breathless and haunting—

“Raquel?”

No, no, no, no. It can't be.

And yet, when Raquel turns around, nerves shot and mind churning through a million theories a minute, she finds herself staring at her very own impossible wish.

“What are you doing here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title taken from ed sheeran's seminal, give me love, which was in fact, my jam in the eighth grade ad still remains a bop to this day.
> 
> also that quote from the 'american detective novel' is in fact from sherlock about irene adler :') (kudos to freshman me's Sherlock phase for that reference) 
> 
> also it's been weeks since i last finished la casa de papel for the first time (t'was an Experience) but raquel and sergio are too good for me to not at least attempt to write something?? sorry it's ridiculously long (and they haven't even really interacted yet!) but now that we've established they're both pining fools in love, we can get 2 the good stuff, i promise
> 
> pls feel free to lmk ur thoughts and also what was ur fave moment between them!
> 
> idk about u but their hangar scene gets me every time  
> also his face when he thinks she's dead.......y'all.


	2. told them i'd let you go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The (ex) lovers have their first conversation since the hangar, and the masterminds behind their meeting are revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> take a shot every time i say 'gaze' or 'eyes' (they're the window to the soul ok i'm sorry i can't help it) 
> 
> also thank u all so so much for the sweet comments and kudos on the last chapter!!  
> it rlly makes my day and ngl motivates me to keep going haha :-) 
> 
> hope u enjoy the tension™

Okay, so Raquel will never admit it, gun to her head or not, but—she’s envisioned this moment many times.

An embarrassing amount, actually.

In some visions, she swears at him fierce, unleashing the pent-up anger that’s been simmering inside for—how long has it been—months? A year? Time moves differently when you’re in love, more so when you’re apart.

And so in some she kisses him, unleashing the pent-up affection that’s been simmering since the goddamn hangar.

In others she does both, because sometimes the ones we love are the ones who make us burn, the ones who keep us up because we’re worrying about whether they’re alive, whether they’re happy, whether they can’t sleep because they’re wondering about us too.

When she's particularly in a mood, when bitterness curls into her stomach and her heart aches like an open wound, Raquel imagines spitting out every bitter seed that’s been planted in her head. That he's ruined her life, that she hates him, that she wishes she had never met him.

After everything (see: sleepless nights, bittersweet sunset dreams, one too many encounters with strangers asking about his bedroom prowess etcetera, etcetera) he would have deserved it.

Even if it isn’t true and Raquel loathes lying, especially after that shitty Salva routine he put her through.

Even if, deep, _deep,_ down, in the place that Raquel keeps the secrets that are too dangerous and ruinous to turn over during daylight, she knows that she would endure a thousand heists just to see him again.

And what do you know.

Here he is, standing in front of her like a birthday present that has come several months too late.

In reality, Raquel is a little more clear headed, a little less quick to act as she stands before his stupid handsome face.

Love may forgive, but it does not forget.

“Raquel?”

He utters her name again when she doesn’t respond, soft, and careful and raw, as though it carries more weight than the gold swimming under the Bank of Spain.

Despite herself, she feels a swooning sensation in her stomach, as though she's a little girl flying off the swings, invincible, unafraid of falling and bleeding out.

But she's not a child anymore. For God’s sake, she _has_ a child. And this unnamed, yet unequivocally present, string tying them together isn't a game, or a fling, or a fantasy that she can just shrug off like lint.

If there is anything that she’s learned in the past year—besides covert ways to shop for vegetables and DIY dalagona coffee recipes—it’s this: the realer things are, the more they can hurt you. 

So Raquel bites her tongue from blurting out whatever heady feeling is rushing through her full force, squares her shoulders and thinks: _Be cool, Raquel. You can do this. Be cool. Be the fucking Arctic if you have to._

Whatever she does next is simply in the name of protection.

"What am _I_ doing here," Raquel echoes, brown eyes narrowing into slits. She lifts her chin with the graceful indifference of a crown-less queen.

“I’m here on what some may say is a well-deserved vacation. And you? What, is the Catholic Church your next target?"

He sputters at her accusation, fiddling with his glasses when they slide down the slope of his nose. She has the odd urge to push them back up for him, to gently calm his fidgeting, to lay her hands on his.

_Ugh._

He’s so close.

It’s as though he stepped straight outside of her sun soaked daydreams when she wasn’t looking, snuck his way into the backdoor of her life. It seems he’s always destined to surprise her.

Because for the first time, he is more than the scent of the bouquet dried up in the corner of her room, more than the postcards stashed away in an old journal. Flesh, not fiction.

A few steps forward, and he’s close enough to touch.

And she wants to. To cup his cheek with her hands, to thread her fingers through his soft brown hair, to tug him so close that her space becomes theirs, to tug him so close that there’s no space at all.

She wants to lay her anger at her feet, to not care about good ideas or bad ideas, to stop thinking so much about how much this will hurt when it inevitably ends as every other relationship in her life has.

She wants, she wants, she wants.

And it is precisely for this reason that Raquel places her hands firmly behind her back, where they can’t do something as foolish as to reach for a man made of a million escape plans.

Raquel is only jolted back into reality when the Professor repeats, "Vacation?" as though the concept is alien on his tongue. 

Figures. The man had spent ten years planning a single event; she can hardly imagine him taking time off to visit a random monastery, let alone any of the islands he had given to her on those goddamn postcards. 

"Yes, Professor," Raquel says, rolling her eyes. "Vacation. Ever heard of it? It's what people do for fun after a year of shit." 

Palermo—if that's even his real name, which it probably, most definitely, isn’t—barks out a laugh from the side. 

"She's got you there, Sergio," Palermo says merrily, as though he isn't at all uncomfortable being a part of their little soap opera.

 _‘I am rooting for you',_ he mouths, winking when Raquel casts him a reproachful look. 

When he carves a heart out of thin air in return, she has to physically fight herself to keep from giving him what he wants and laughing.

Palermo is clearly complicit in whatever fresh hell this is. The only question is how. And _why._

The Professor winces at her words, obvious regret pulling at the corners of his eyes.

“Raquel, I…”

Raquel merely arches an eyebrow, feeling a guilty twinge of pleasure at the way he bites his lip mournfully.

Good. The asshole should feel at least a healthy margin of regret, after leaving her nothing to work with for a year. 

Because it wasn’t as if she had been expecting anything wild, like a love letter, or hell, a marriage proposal. But something—no matter how small or hurried or inelegant—would have been better than what she actually got, which was absolutely fucking nothing.

He could have at least left a note.

_Sorry I can never see you again but thanks for the best night of my life;_

or

_10/10 would do again if I wasn't a wanted criminal;_

or

 _It's not you, it's the fact that I'm a wanted man on the run_. 

But to leave with no trace, no message, no signs…Raquel would have preferred outright rejection; at least then, she wouldn’t have been stuck with a pitiful string of hope keeping her from fully engaging with all of the terrible double dates she’d gone on with Ángel.

"I--Raquel, I, I really am sorry about that," The Professor says, eyes blinding so wide and so earnestly that they strike straight through her stupid heart. “I didn't mean to hurt you. I know that sounds…incredibly naive, and maybe it is, but it’s the truth. Stupid, but…true.” 

“Well, you did.” 

Raquel aims to sound as nonchalant as possible, but the Professor must see through her like water, or else be truly consumed by his guilt, because he bows his head deeply, as though he is a step away from kneeling for her forgiveness.

"I know. And for that there is no apology that can ever be enough,” he says clearly, without a hint of hesitation.

“It is my only regret, truly. I understand if you want nothing to do with me, of course…but if I could just—if there’s anything that I can do—to at least _begin_ to atone for everything that happened, I’ll do it. No questions asked.”

They do nothing but stare at each other for a moment that seems to go on longer than it probably is, boiling emotions and unspoken words making the air feel as taut as a tightrope.

“This is all very touching,” Palermo says lightly, fanning himself with his hand. “But can you two please hurry up and make out so we can eat already? Driving really does give me such an appetite.”

“No one asked you to do that,” Raquel points out, momentarily distracted by the other man’s antics. She whips her head back toward the Professor, who knits his eyebrows together as he seems to come to his own realization.

“You didn’t, did you?”

“No, of course not,” The Professor says, as quickly and authoritatively as a military commander.

And she knows he doesn’t mean for it to sting, but also, ouch.

“Raquel, I have to ask…how did you find this place?" 

"My mother," Raquel starts, trailing off when she stops for the first time to think— _really_ think, about where her mother had gotten this information. Information about a monastery that appeared seemingly out of thin air, that couldn’t be found on any recent maps.

“She mentioned something about a contact,” Raquel mutters, more to herself than anything else.

She had been so preoccupied with the report, and making sure Paula was happy and that Marivì was safe, that she had allowed her mother to take over planning the whole thing.

“Let me do this for you, mi amor,” her mother had said, coaxing her away from the travel sights and hotel bookings.

Raquel swallows, a faint memory of the tail ends of an email hitting her full force.

“His initials were A.F.”

When the Professor runs his hands through his hair and mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like Mierda, she knows.

Clearly, she thinks, ignoring the involuntary pang rumbling in her chest, this little surprise was not orchestrated by him at all.

She doesn’t know if she should be more relieved or disappointed.

Before she can decide, however, her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of her daughter skipping through the halls, tailed closely by her mother.

Her mother who, Raquel realizes, slapped with shock, is using an all too familiar man’s arm as a makeshift cane.

As they approach, Raquel readies herself to demand an explanation Inspectora-style, but The Professor beats her to it, eyes narrowed, mouth set in a hard line.

“Andrés,” snaps the Professor, practically radiating with agitation beside her. If it were possible to smite people with words, she imagines the man would spontaneously crumble to ash on the marble floors.

“Explain yourself. Now.”

* * *

If you put a gun to Sergio’s head and order him to tell you the truth, he’ll simply say this: he didn’t plan it.

After all, you couldn’t plan for something that was out of the scope of your imagination.

The silence from her end was clear evidence of her feelings (or lack thereof), and God, it damned him.

He spent afternoons trying to busy himself with novels and failing, ruminating under the unforgiving island sun, sitting on uncomfortable barstools and agonizing over his mistakes at the speed of melting ice cubes in vodka.

Such examination was fruitless, of course, because at the end of the day, he always arrived at the same conclusion: Raquel wanted nothing to do with him.

If the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, well, then Sergio was surely mad—ly in love, that was.

The evidence told him that it was fruitless to hope. He could have probably saved a lot of pesos from all the Sarsis he bought from the bar, and still, he trudged out there every day, driven bythe seemingly bottomless well of yearning that had taken root inside of him.

Love, Sergio has learned, is like a disease in this way.

A pesky, untreatable disease that spreads slowly and invisibly until your body is choking from it, unable to live with or without it. To yearn, he thinks, is to cling for the same drug that is giving you the side effects in the first place; pain and pleasure intertwined.

And thanks to Sergio’s time in the hospital, he is all too familiar with illness, with balms meant to treat aches that killed you from inside. He had spent most of his childhood breathing it, surrounded by it, living it. But nothing could compare to the agony of finding an equal partner for the first time in his forty years—and then losing her forever.

It was like being in jail with no chance of parole. A fitting punishment, he thought wryly, for an internationally wanted criminal whose worst offence was not stealing millions, but rather hurting the woman he loved.

After reaching the six month mark in Palawan, 99% of Sergio stopped viewing the possibility of ever seeing Raquel again as anything more than a distant dream.

That’s what it was, anyway.

Believing that a woman, whose life he had effectively _ruined_ , would somehow get on a plane and willingly meet him on some faraway island to which she had never been before?

Children’s stories were more believable.

In any case, what he needed was the stuff of fairytales, because meeting Raquel again would require nothing less than magic, sorcery, witchcraft. He may have been Tokyo’s guardian angel, but he was out of miracles for himself.

Of course, there was one thing he hadn’t considered, one thing that was more powerful than everything and everyone keeping him and Raquel apart, and that was his brother’s irritating obsession with his love life.

“I told you Florence would be worth it, didn’t I?” Andrés says idly, as he ambles up to them with Marivì at his side as though he’s known her for years and not, like, five seconds.

The sight of his brother chumming along with Raquel’s mother as though they’re best pals is so disorienting that Sergio is almost convinced that he’s living in a fever dream.

Raquel seems to share his sentiments, opening and closing her mouth a few times as she works to gather the right words for this situation.  
  
Eventually, she settles on a spirited, “what the _fuck_?”

Frankly, Sergio is inclined to agree.

“Raquel, please,” Marivì says lightly. “We can all hear you, there's no need to scream." 

“For fuck’s sake—”

Cutting into the beginning of what Sergio imagines is a lengthy tirade against her mother, Sergio rushes to speak.

“Marivì, I’m so sorry about this—if my brother has, in any way disturbed you or done anything, I swear—”

Marivì waves a hand in the air, her warm eyes glinting with a good-natured mischief that reminds him of her daughter as she chuckles. “For what, cariño? The cheapest Italian vacation I’ve had since the 70s? You have nothing to apologize for there, Sergio. I haven’t seen this many hot men in a long time. For breaking my daughter’s heart, on the other hand…”

“Mamá!” Raquel bursts out in a mortified half-whine that only makes her more adorable.

Sergio’s heart flutters for a moment at her expression—wide eyed, with a faint blush of pink teasing her cheeks—then he remembers that fawning over her isn’t actually going to help his case.

“In that case, let me apologize for putting your family in harm’s way,” Sergio begins, fighting the urge to glance at Raquel’s face for any clues that she believes him, or even that she wants to believe him.

“If there is anything you or your granddaughter need,” Sergio says, resolute and determined as he gathers the courage to meet Marivì’s eyes, “it’s yours at once.”

At the mention of her granddaughter, Marivì’s sharp grin softens at the edges and she squeezes his shoulder.

“Good man,” she says. “And what about my daughter?”

“Excuse me? I’m right here,” Raquel interjects, placing her hands on her hips as she glares at both guilty parties.

“I will, of course, do my best to make amends,” Sergio says, trailing off as he allows his view to drift toward Raquel. “If she wills it.”

She swallows a little, clearly taken aback by his response, but doesn’t back down. Instead she holds him up, pinning him to the spot with the intensity in her eyes, the righteous aura of the light cast upon her Renaissance face. God. She has this incredible fierceness about her; one look could easily throw him under. And despite Sergio being the textbook definition of a control freak, he knows that he wouldn’t mind losing just a little for her.

The next moment is nothing if not proof of her ability to spurn his heart over his head, because before he can even think about it, Sergio finds himself saying, “whatever she wants is hers.”

The fact that his voice comes out with huskier than intended, with a warm roughness rarely associated with a man whose wardrobe consists of librarian outfits, does not help: Raquel really does blush then.

It feels like a bit of a victory, if he’s being honest. A faint spark of hope grazes the knots in his stomach, like a flame flickering against rope.

It lasts for about a minute before something passes over her face—a shadow, a bad memory. Whatever it is extinguishes any traces of playfulness in the air, leaving behind something infinitely heavier.

“What I want,” Raquel repeats, voice deathly calm in a way that makes him want to pull her close, to turn back time, to travel to a universe where they met outside of a crime scene, “is a Taxi.”

Until this moment, Sergio didn’t think it was possible for words to leave physical wounds. Knowing that he deserves it—and far worse, actually—doesn’t ease the way hers slice through his body like a blade.

 _Whatever she wants,_ he reminds himself. He’s in no position to argue.

Sergio sets his jaw, swallows back the taste of blood.

If Sergio had bothered to look at her, he would have caught the disappointment flickering in her eyes, the way her mouth dipped into a tiny frown. Perhaps he would have even considered that she was testing him, wanting to see him _want_ her to stay.

But of course, life is never easy for lovers.

“Of course,” Sergio says dully, fixating on the crack of paint in the wall as though it’s suddenly the most fascinating piece of work he’s ever seen.

“Unfortunately, my dear Inspectora,” Andrés cuts in. “I’m afraid there are no taxis going in and out.”

“And why is that?”

Andrés smiles, all teeth, like a wolf baring its sharpest weapons in the moonlight.

“There’s been an accident on the road. Everything’s closed up until at least tomorrow—maybe even the day after that, which means—”

“Which means I’m stuck here,” Raquel finishes for him, realization settling into her slumped shoulders.

“Not quite,” Andrés says, wagging a finger. “ _We’re_ stuck here.”

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from ed sheeran's seminal, give me love, which was in fact, my jam in the eighth grade ad still remains a bop to this day.
> 
> also that quote from the 'american detective novel' is in fact from sherlock about irene adler :') (kudos to freshman me's Sherlock phase for that reference) 
> 
> also it's been weeks since i last finished la casa de papel for the first time (t'was an Experience) but raquel and sergio are too good for me to not at least attempt to write something?? sorry it's ridiculously long (and they haven't even really interacted yet!) but now that we've established they're both pining fools in love, we can get 2 the good stuff, i promise
> 
> pls feel free to lmk ur thoughts and also what was ur fave moment between them!
> 
> idk about u but their hangar scene gets me every time  
> also his face when he thinks she's dead.......y'all.


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